Children's lunch boxes have usually been made from metal utilizing a conventional box shape with a handle formed on one side and hinges on an opposite side. In addition, there is normally provided some mechanical type of catch on the front portion of the box to hold the lunch box closed. These types of lunch boxes are not only relatively expensive to manufacture, but because metal is used, they are relatively heavy, tend to rust over extended use, can be dangerous to children in exhibiting sharp corners and are easily dented or otherwise damaged if dropped.
Alternatives to the foregoing types of lunch boxes involve simply packaging a child's lunch in a plastic type container with a cover. While this arrangement will serve to hold the lunch and keep it relatively fresh, the container itself is not easy for a child to carry and the cover once separated from the container can readily become lost. Because of these latter problems, it is not uncommon practice to simply package a child's lunch in a brown paper bag and properly identify the lunch by writing the child's name on the bag. This solution, however, also has drawbacks in that no proper sealing of the contents is possible with a simple bag nor is there provided any type of "container" which could function as a serving tray when the child is eating.